After New Paltz bar shooting, security in focus

NEW PALTZ — Shots rang out inside a New Paltz bar early Easter Sunday, leaving one man dead and a second person wounded.

BY PAULINE LIU

NEW PALTZ — Shots rang out inside a New Paltz bar early Easter Sunday, leaving one man dead and a second person wounded.

The shooter remained at large Sunday. Police say Ryan Gray, a 29-year-old Poughkeepsie resident, was fatally shot.

Police withheld the identity of the wounded victim. No motive was given, either. Police said the fatal confrontation happened about 2 a.m. in Murphy's Restaurant and Bar on Main Street.

According to witnesses, the bar was crowded with as many as 60 people when the sound of gunfire broke out; terrified patrons began rushing for the exits.

"I was in the bathroom. I heard three shots — they weren't very loud, but I knew right away that they were gunshots," said Shaun Hanson, a junior at SUNY New Paltz, who was there with some members of the baseball team.

Hanson said that as police arrived, there was a crush of people trying to evacuate through the front door.

"I caught a glimpse of a guy lying on the floor as I was leaving, and he didn't look good," he said.

After spending the evening at another nightspot, Emily Walis said she was returning to her car when she saw mayhem outside the bar.

"A cop (in a patrol car) went flying through the stop sign and almost hit us, and there were people running out of Murphy's," Walis said.

Inside the bar, the police officers found two people shot.

Both victims were rushed to an unidentified local hospital, where one victim was pronounced dead, police said.

New Paltz Police are asking the public for information that might lead to the arrest of the suspect.

University Police are assisting in the investigation, as are the Ulster Sheriff's and District Attorney's offices and State Police.

Some students described Murphy's as a bar popular with campus fraternities, but "neither victim is a SUNY New Paltz student or employee," David Dugatkin, chief of the University Police said in an email sent to SUNY New Paltz students and employees Sunday.

Kenneth Verney, owner of the bar, said he and his staff were shocked and saddened. Village Trustee Ariana Basco said the recent incidents involving gun violence point to "how much we really need our police department,"

Just last week, a Brooklyn man who was visiting his college girlfriend on the SUNY New Paltz campus was arrested for allegedly menacing two students with a handgun.

New Paltz Town Supervisor Sue Zimet said an incident like Sunday's fatal incident was bound to happen at some point.

"When you have the bars in New Paltz with the kind of night activity we have, and are surrounded by three cities, and with the campus right in the middle, you can't expect something not to happen," she said.

It also points to the need for a discussion of how the town and campus can best provide the security needed, she said.

The situation is ripe for the kind of collaborative effort the state promotes heavily, Zimet said.

"This is a perfect opportunity for the state to say it is partners with the community of New Paltz — so we can afford to have the kind of police we need in this community," she said.